Someone in the Horizon League should tell head coach Brad Stevens that his Butler Bulldogs are not supposed to be this good. Maybe someone in the Top 20 should tell him, before Butler sneaks up on college basketball’s elite teams and wipes them aside, much as the Bulldogs have cleaned up their opponents so far in the young 2008-09 campaign.

Nearly every NBA “expert” picked Philadelphia as their sleeper in the Eastern Conference during the pre-season. It appeared to be a logical choice. Take a team that finished well, add an almost superstar in Elton Brand and the team should win 7-10 more games, right? I disagreed.

This weeks Buzzer Beaters gives you the scoop on how you can meet some players from the Raptors this afternoon, a video interview with Reggie Miller, information about the new Yao Ming Transformer and a tip about which former Toronto Raptor wants to play for the Canadian National Team.

In October, I interviewed Basketball Canada’s Manager of Coach Education and Development Mike MacKay and Basketball Ontario’s Executive Director Michele O’Keefe about long term athlete development the changes on-going in Canada’s basketball development system, as their goals are similar to those proposed in Cross Over: The New Model of Youth Basketball Development.

Christmas came a couple weeks early when a package from Converse showed up at my door on Friday.

Joey and Stephen Graham may look identical, but their respective journeys so far in the NBA have had different paths. It’s taken both players four years to find their groove in the NBA, but it looks like they have found niches on their respective teams this season.

At several points during the second half, Dixon and House were matched up against one another, and I found that matchup to be intriguing.  Both players are natural-born shooters, but due to their height limitations, they are forced to incorporate their point guard skills with their great shooting ability and at times they struggle to merge the two.  Tonight, Dixon played that role perfectly by dishing out seven assists to go with his 17 points.  The Celtics did not really need House’s point guard acumen this evening, but they did rely on his shooting in the fourth quarter.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to get a phone call from Kevin Garnett? It’s no longer a dream as adidas Canada is giving basketball fans a chance to get a phone call from Garnett.

Their loss to the Washington earlier this week dropped Detroit’s record to 11-9. Not only have they gone just 4-7 since that glowing win over the Los Angeles Lakers, but they now find themselves in the unfamiliar position of being eight games out of the Eastern Conference lead and six and a half games out of first place in the Central Division.

Tonight was a big night for the Toronto Raptors because Jay Triano got his first official win as a head coach in the NBA, Jason Kapono scored a season high 25 points and the team snapped a five-game losing skid.